Wednesday, 20 June 2012

.
Rolfs lake was covered in carp and swimming around in big groups and with very
little ripple on the lake, this could prove to be a hard match. So will plan to
catch hopefully a early carp or two and then target skimmers for the middle of
the match and if catch them well will try and do the magic ton! The bream are
on average 2lb 8oz and there are a few biggers ones(4 lbers). Also be aware
that the fish are weighing in light as they have just spawned. So i'm looking
for 35 to 40 bream to do the magic ton. Also I don't want to get small fish
fever, as the end of the day this is a carp lake and can be a baggin lake with
300lb weights to win!
So started on pellets and went straight out to the 13 meters with only a
toss pot of 4mm pellet in hope of a very early carp, after a couple of minutes
I had a bream and then a foul hooked 12lb 12oz common carp that gave me one
hell of a fight. After an hour I had 7 bream and 1 carp and looking around the
lake people were struggling. Therefore decided to start feeding my other lines,
as primarily I wanted to focus all my strengths on one line. So fed a chop worm
line, with chopped corn, a few casters and 4mm pellet that have soaked up all
the worm juice and therefore mounds into a bit of a ball which sinks much
faster. I've have tried it with groundbait, but get millions of roach and small
skimmers in the past. I think this is best, but open to suggestions and will
keep trying new things to see if I can come up with something that could be
more effective. But the biggest issue is that carp came into the peg, which
isn't a bad thing when they are 16lb and 15lb, but they do bully the bream out
of the way. It was a strange and frustrating night, as some of the bites were
the smallest of indications, which I think were due to the bright sunshine and
still conditions.

I was pleased to beat my 75lb of skimmers by 2lb. But do feel that there is
100lb plus shoal of bream waiting for someone and also a very good chance of
doing 400lb of carp, which I would love to do, as I haven't quite got there
yet. Also in the winter I know my team mate Steve Walters and Phil Powell
(dawg) do good weights of roach! So this year at Rolfs I would like to do 100lb
of bream, 400lb of Carp and 40lb of roach in the winter.

Sunday, 17 June 2012

I haven’t been to Solhampton since the May Festival, which
for me was a disaster, so was keen to catch some fish.We were on Valley tonight and there was a
club match on it.So looking around the
lake, Valley was fishing hard with little action.I helped Burgess with weigh in, and the top
end of the lake was difficult and 98lb and a few 60lb’s few down the bottom of
the lake where the wind was blowing into.So I hoped to be down the bottom of the lake,
nope peg 10 and so kitted up three margin rigs and three rigs at 4 and 5
meters.That was it.Evening match was going to fish pellets, corn
and worms down the edge if things proved to be difficult.My worm mix included fishery micro pellet,
chopped corn and of course worms, but the worms were big chunks and not minced.

Got off to a flying start at 4 meters in three foot of
water, the first hour saw me catch between 55lb and 60lb whereas the rest of
match saw me struggle a little and caught fish in spells.At 7.30pm I had six small carp in six casts
and again gone......strange night.Was surprised that I had over 100lb and felt
that I had maximum of 90lb.So was
pleased with the result, but disappointed to get beaten by Karl “top bagger”
Stephens by 3lb.Only wanted one more
fish!

Sunday, 10 June 2012

This match turned out to be very tough and was a bit of a wake up call from last weeks match. The canal had more colour than normal and we have an awful lot of rain recently, so with spawning, weather, pressure on the venue over the last few months are maybe a factor to why it isn't fishing as well as we had hoped for.

Wednesday, 6 June 2012

I'm lucky to be now to be sponsored by Colmic. I went across to Italy to look around the factory earlier in the year
and helped with the UK catalogue which is now out.Vespe also still support me which I am very grateful
for.

The county champs has changed its format this year as there
no semi final and the top 3 of each county go through.I would like to fish the final, so need to
pull my finger out as my point score is a little low at the moment.A few anglers haven’t registered yet in my
county, so their scores are unknown to the public, but I would imagine they would have a high
scores. Our super league has started so will have good size matches each week so hopefully will be able to boost my score.

You can see the scores each week in the Angling Times or see their link

After fishing for Gordon League for a couple
of seasons I have decided to go back to my old team, Drennan Oxford, which is
now called Drennan Banbury Gunsmiths.It
is nice to be back with my old team mates which hasn’t seen hardly any changes
in two years.The team has had four new
signing’s for 2012/2013 season which is myself, Tom Hobbs, Steve Walters and Paul Glenfield
which will strengthen an already good team.The reason for me leaving is I do miss some of the venues, some of the members
which I have learnt a lot off over the years and continue to and especially bloodworm
fishing.I have felt a little stagnate for
the last couple of years and falling out with Steve Ford was enough to tip the
boat for me to leave as well. I would
like to thank Mark Tresure, who does do a good job of running the team and I
wish him all the success in the future.

Looking forward to Super League and hopefully
will fish the final again, as I did three years ago.Also we have Turner 400 and Thames Champs on
Upper Thames, the Thames Champs is something I’ve always wanted to win as a
team.Then we move onto the winter
league, so hopefully we can do well in this league and the semi’s and maybe
even the final

Big Money Finals

Last year saw me almost get into Fish O Mania final again as I was second at Tunnel Barn Farm. I only have one ticket left this year at Lindholme which is a 300 pegger! I had one other ticket which saw me fish Larford Lakes and only managed to win my section of 11kg of roach.
I have bought three Maver Match this, which is two at Larford and the other is Tunnel Barn Farm. So fingers and toes crossed.

Sunday, 3 June 2012

Just started with my new, well old team really, so was very keen on doing well as I have my motivation back.I was lucky to draw one of the six end pegs on the Marlborough's water, as with any end peg it is well worth having!I drew Churches which can throw up good weights of skimmers and big perch.However, the canal has seen a lot of matches recently and was concerned the canal may fish hard again and if the roach don’t feed because of spawning then I/we could be in trouble.The favoured section was the station as this has been fishing really well for skimmers.

The looked a good colour and I fancied for a few fish, however the moored boat was quite the way down and also the far bank had very little cover with no depth.Therefore fished 16 meters to my right towards the boat with chop worm and caster, then 11 meters in front of me for roach with squatts and other skimmer line to my left which was groundbait with worms.

I started on my 11 meter line for the first thirty minutes and caught about 6 roach and 4oz skimmer.A little slow, Dave Johnson next to me had three skimmers for about a pound.So went of the 16 meter line and the next thirty minutes saw me have a skimmer a chuck (4lb).So I was pleased with 4lb 8oz within an hour.Then reefed the long 16 meter line and went of groundbait line to the left which resulted in nothing despite flicking casters over the top.So put a big pot of worm over the top (no groundbait) and went of squatt line which was stronger, so this line was building in strength.So went on the hunt for big fish again, and caught 1lb perch over the big pot of worm, then nothing and then reefed again and went on the long line at 16 meters and to my surprise didn’t catch, so continued to change baits and rigs to try and catch but nothing.

I the roach line was alright but I wasn’t catching fast, maybe 40 fish an hour and not 50 – 70 which is the norm.The fish were spooking and backing off.So felt that I needed to catch bigger fish so rotated all my lines and ensured that I primed the big fish which did give me a boost at 2 0’clock with three puts which result in 2lb of perch and again gone.The big fish never really came back.So I had 7lb of skimmers and perch and just under 5lb of roach.